Physiology
by Saiths
Summary: ...and to whatever deity Welkin believes in, he prayed from that day on that no one else would know about it." Welkin/Alicia.


"…_and to whatever deity Welkin believed in, he prayed to it that Alicia was the only one who knew this secret."_

A warm hello to everyone (and for those who care enough to be visiting another, hello… again)! I figure since I don't have a blog or anything like that, I may as well post small status updates before every submission, so that those who are willing to read and pay attention (mostly me after hours of submission…) can do so, and those who don't really care can skip along.

_**Physiology**_

Hamamelis. Commonly known as Witch-hazel, a genus of plants belonging to the Hamamelidaceae family. It's a new type of plant brought from the empire, imported over to the Gallian greenhouse for study. In fact, this particular plant that Welkin was staring at has been sitting for quite some time. He was thrilled to be able to peruse and study the strange, foreign plant to his heart's desire.

…and to Welkin's disappointment, he had gathered the following information on this plant: it has a healthy shade of green and yellow.

Welkin shook his head vigorously, trying to focus on what was important: the plant sitting before him. Upon realizing that he could still not focus, he gave a small cry of agony, posterior landing on the soft dirt below him. After the signing of the treaty, as well as the slow, steady return to peaceful, civilized life, Welkin found that he wasn't as attentive as he had used to be. The once brilliant university student studying mercilessly on nearly every animal or plant he had seen had turned into some sort of savage war hero without morals, only spending his nights drinking ungodly amounts of alcohol, singing songs of his victories and courting dozens of women every night.

Well, only a part of that last part was true. After all, Alicia would be devastated if he had any sort of that _unique_ attention with eleven other women.

Inhaling the air, he could smell the fragrance of the flowers in the greenhouse, merging with fresh, baking flour. If anything, he knew that he could simply walk out and go back into his home to walk into a goddess smiling, welcoming him from his studies, delicious pastries in her arms that she had prepared earlier that afternoon for him.

Apologizing to her in his head, Welkin pushed aside any thoughts of Alicia as he picked up his pencil and clipboard. The petals of the witch-hazel plant were yellow. Beautiful, care free, surrounding what he had assumed was the fruit of the plant. Welkin's hand was writing everything down, yet his mind was still entranced with something else.

Beautiful… care free… features that only surrounded the beauty and complexity that is this being. Welkin found himself whispering his lover's name, gasping quietly when he realized he was doing so.

"Argh! Damnit!"

Shaking his head, Welkin again apologized to Alicia in his mind as he erased all previous thoughts on her. He had decided that staring at the flower of the plant would be too much work.

Welkin had instead looked at the trunk and branches of the plant. This particular breed of witch-hazel was a small tree, something his professor had told him was a rarity even in the Empire. His hand began to move again as he recited the details to himself.

"Slim, smooth, joints seem to be well connected, almost flawless surface, shades of the bark are brilliant…"

At that moment, he realized he had stopped breathing momentarily. His delayed breath was short and fast, for some reason his shirt had felt unusually warm today.

"This plant seems to be well grown, compared with the other subjects this one has my attention the most… It caught my attention the moment I saw it."

Welkin smiled, finally he was getting somewhere with all of this. Hand blazing through, lead of the pencil scratching on paper, silence broke.

"_W-Welkin!"_

He froze. It was obviously a figment of his imagination. But the voice… the tone of it…

"_P-Please… W-Welkin…"_

His eyes widened, his face flushed, Welkin dropped to the floor again, clipboard clattering on the dirt as he covered his mouth with his hand to cover his gasp. He tried to ignore the increasing pressure around his pants as details of the previous night had decided to fly into his head.

"I… really am turning into a barbarian, aren't I?"

His eyes shot back to the innocent witch-hazel, oblivious to the fact that it caused Welkin "friendly" reminders, or even some less than appropriate memories of…

"Gah!"

Forget it, the plant had succeeded in _arousing_ him, if that even made sense. Welkin was beginning to scare even himself with his connection to wildlife.

Dusting himself off, Welkin ignored the beauty of the flower, the shape and texture of the branches, and instead looked at the roots of the plant. The dirt was damp, someone apparently came and watered the plants this morning. Welkin's pencil began to move again.

"The roots are a light brown color, they seem to attract one another especially well when moisture is high. The amount of roots for this plant is staggering, they all seem to be organized, but are quite chaotic when…"

Welkin blinked, and in that fraction of a second all he saw was his bed below him, the silhouette of a slim figure hugging his body, it's back reflecting the moonlight from the window.

"_You were… quite energetic tonight… weren't you?" _

A giggle accompanied the voice, and all he saw was the moist hair scattered across the sheets and pillows. Sweat glistened throughout her figure, her once well-shaped hair was frantically wired around the bed, her shoulders, and his arms.

"_Is… a second round too much to ask, Dr. Gunther?"_

"H-Holy mother of-"

Welkin flew to the ground again, clipboard lost somewhere, his heart pounding, his lungs demanding air. Sweat formed above his brow as he recalled the foreplay from last night, had anyone in Bruhl knew what occurred many a time throughout these summer nights, they would never look at the Gunther family with such respect and honor again.

He stood up quickly, not bothering to wipe the dust off of his pants and finding his now lost notes. All he cared about was finishing the torture that was observing this plant.

His eyes caught a small white tag attached to a nearby table, previous notes from the professor he had assumed.

"Due to the difficult conditions of it's origin, Hamamelis, through natural selection, sends immense force through the fruit of the flower in order to increase reproduction rates-"

The smell of bread grew stronger.

Welkin's head swerved to see the plant one more time, eyes shooting open as he heard soft cracking. On a plant a few feet away, the fruit burst open, covering the past-observed breed of Hamamelis with it's seed.

He saw everything in detail. The former Welkin Gunther would've been pleased. The Welkin Gunther of today could only focus on the **explosive** action taken by the other plant, and how the seed slowly trickled down the branches and trunk of the past-observed plant.

His knees sunk into the ground, and with every fiber of his being Welkin begged his body not to blink, move, or even breathe in fear of what he would experience. The wind was strong today, and Welkin swore at the climate of Bruhl as his eyelids came crashing down.

"_W-Welkin! I-I can't… we have to… W-Welkin!"_

A final cry of pleasure before the figure below him joined him in bliss, their anterior regions moist as they both held each other, panting with only smiles on their faces.

And it was this moment that whatever was left of the Gunther family's dignity was shattered as the last member sunk to the ground and groaned loudly.

His eyes were still shut, it took moments for Welkin's obliterated senses finally registered only one thing.

The smell of fresh bread.

He turned around, the legs and shadow of the figure was all he could see on his knees, and with sweat beads forming, Welkin Gunther raised his head to see Alicia, basket of bread in hand, with quite possibly the most horrifyingly mischievous face forming.

"Why, I just don't know about being out done by a bunch of shrubs, Welkin."

**End**

(Yes, they most likely get very friendly in the greenhouse.)

The idea of this is absurd, I'll be the first one to suggest it as well. Exactly how this happened, I have no idea, I'll blame only the white wine I had earlier. But in all honesty, I can see Welkin being aroused by observing a plant. After all, you have to think like that one way or another.

It's been awhile since I've logged on , and I take the majority of the blame for that, since I _know_ I've had the time to do so. But with the oncoming school year that seems to bask in the idea of torturing myself, I haven't had the opportunity to write anything (or even thresh out the mental effort needed to write at all) that I'd like to. Despite that, I've always had time and energy to enjoy things, not much produce them. So thank you to a certain someone out there to coerce me into buying, playing, watching, and ultimately finding myself infatuated with Valkyria Chronicles.

As to where I'm at right now, don't expect much. The only reason I have this much spare time is because of my thankfully extended Thanksgiving holiday, which now gives me more time to kill. I apologize to anyone who looks forward to anything, and I also apologize for plaguing every other brilliant work out there. Lastly, I apologize for taking a large amount of the word count in these ridiculously over-sized author notes.

Originally this was supposed to be yet another post-war setting, Alicia attempting to study animals and plants like Welkin does every day. Somehow, it turned into this monstrous idea of a story that took that idea and tossed it away. I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with it, since this was written late at night, the wine still circulating in my veins. I know this time around I _did_ have punctuation and grammar problems. It doesn't flow as well as I think it will, and most likely I will go through this story after it's submission dozens of times to correct everything I think is wrong, if I don't remove it first.

Criticisms are sought after, because I knew I screwed up one way or another. Reviews make this stuff even more worthwhile, if not already me spending a few hours or so in front of my computer.


End file.
